


Memento Mori

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 20:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen ponders grief and love en route to Woolcombe. Set between <i>The Yellow Admiral</i> and <i>The Hundred Days.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Memento Mori

Dr. Stephen Maturin had been travelling for twelve days since leaving Funchal Roads in Madeira to get to Woolcombe. Finally the workings of his ceaselessly abstract and analytic mind had forced him to turn over in consideration the very painful events of the previous thirteen days. Thirteen days ago, during a trip to the mail agent’s office in Funchal, he had opened a letter from Clarissa Oakes that informed him of Diana’s wholly unexpected death. He had long prided himself on his ability to be dispassionate and rational and he had found himself all at sea more than he ever had been in his life, his heart and mind and even body seemingly impelled by sentiments more powerful than any typhoon he had ever witnessed. For Stephen, who took for granted the mastery of his own emotions, his reactions had been deeply disturbing. As he rode in the post-chaise towards Woolcombe, nothing could distract him from the path his thoughts took, remembering and putting together the events and trying to make sense of them and then trying to come to some coherent conclusion about his reactions, having denied himself laudanum or any other sedative besides wine since getting the terrible news.  
  
Stephen would never forget the horrific moment in the mail agent’s office in Funchal when his eyes fell on Clarissa’s words and the realization of Diana’s death hit him. Almost instantly, he was struck with a pure pain worse than any he had ever experienced in his life. It was beyond breathtaking. He had felt something in his body that extended from the top of his head to the bottom of his spine be ripped out from him and begin to be pulverized. He wondered that he had not collapsed that instant. It was worse than his experience of being tortured, worse than anything he had ever known and there was no evident physical aspect to it. He felt as though he could barely get air into his lungs as Jack had led him out to the little mediocre inn across the plaza.  "Sure, the impetus was nothing but grief, pure grief," he thought, “though I can scarce believe it. The emotion must have violently disordered my humours.” He had always thought of himself as a detached observer of the world around him and it was a shock to find his entire body subjected to a violent emotional cataclysm. He had withstood weeks of torture more easily than the seconds following his reading of those words. He had never encountered a similar account of extreme grief turned into intense physical pain, but true, it was not a topic the scientifically-minded were likely to ever recount or even admit to having experienced. It was so intensely personal that Stephen thought he could scarce tell a living soul. He had not articulated a word of it to his particular friend, Jack Aubrey, who had witnessed it all first hand.  
  
Stephen had thought the pain could not possibly get worse and then the word “Diana” was on his lips and he had felt as though he should collapse into a ball of blind agony. He could not say her name or think of her in any way, the pain was so unbearably intense. Stephen thought now that  the sensation was some physical manifestation of his soul being ripped to shreds. There was no reason operating in him, there was nothing but the utmost degree of emotional perception rendered into agonized physiology. He had wanted nothing more than to make the pain stop as soon as possible. Had he been completely alone, he now realized, he would have done whatever it would have taken to end his own life. A half pint of laudanum would have dulled him into a fatal coma but it would not have been fast enough and the sensation was unbearable. He would have taken a pistol and laid it upon his temple and pulled the trigger, mortal sin or no mortal sin, had Jack not been there. No eternal hell could be worse than what Stephen felt at that moment and he wanted it to end. There was nothing left in him to deal with the pain: no perspective, no reason, no abstraction, nothing but the worst pain he could ever conceive. Thirteen days later, Stephen’s grief was still so fresh that he had not the distance to condemn himself for those self-destructive sentiments. “Dear God, forgive me, please,” Stephen said to himself, “and may I never feel that ever again.” He simultaneously entirely comprehended the urge and was appalled to have felt it.  
  
The pain had gone on longer than he could have imagined possible. Only Jack’s body enclosing him in an embrace had been any relief at all. He had felt a jag he could not seem to get over or breathe past, like the bottom of his ribcage caught upon a giant hook and he could give no voice to the rending of his soul until Jack had rubbed his shoulder blades very hard and finally sobs could escape from him. It felt as though he had wept for hours. He still then could not invoke Diana in any way without the pain becoming unfathomably worse and only one word could escape him, “no” repeated over and over and over. No to everything, negation of all reality. No, this could not be happening, no, this could not be real, no, he could not go on living, this pain would destroy him. Jack’s presence was the only reality Stephen could perceive in that infinite pain. He was conscious of Jack all around him, Jack’s arms holding him tightly, Jack’s scent filling his head and unclenching the cold iron fist that was crushing his heart. He felt intensely dizzy, as though he should lose consciousness. Finally he could actually speak and his mouth was unbearably dry and he asked Jack to get him a drink. He had then found himself incapable of swallowing and barely capable of speech.”How very strange this grief is, how all encompassing.” Stephen thought. “Sure, this must be how people die of a broken heart within a day of the loss of a love. I should not have survived it had Jack not been with me.”  
  
When his sobs had finally ceased, the pain had been markedly duller but Stephen was conscious of a severe dysregulation in his body, that something was terribly wrong. It at least had served to distract him. His shift  back to physician had occurred without any thought on his part: considering what sensations he could perceive and arriving at a diagnosis and then considering what paucity of options for any treatment he had. He had realized he was facing imminent circulatory collapse and would be good as dead within an hour’s time. He wondered at it now, that he had chosen to act in order to live in the face of such agony he had just known. Perhaps it was Jack’s presence that had compelled him. Jack was the only thing tying him to life at that moment. Jack’s actions in response to Stephen’s direction had come off very effectively and they had  stopped the metabolic cascade leading Stephen to collapse and death. It had been a close call and Stephen had written about it in his journal the next morning, never mentioning Diana in it at all. He wondered if the excruciating pain from his head to the base of his spine were in fact, the beginning of this circulatory collapse. Once averted, he was exhausted and had fallen into a deep sleep next to Jack  
  
Looking back, he thought those hours should have been the worst of it, but it was not to be. Still very fresh and vivid was what he had experienced later that night. After some hours, he awakened weeping in his sleep the middle of the night to that horrific soul-rending pain again. His heart was full of a terror he had never known, feeling himself being lost to complete nothingness. He felt himself as though falling off the face of a cliff in the dark, into a black, gaping maw of absolute nothingness: a vacuum with no light, no sound, no heat, no mass, no God; total and utter nothingness and it wholly terrified him. He could not pray. Jack's voice was next to him in the darkness, his strong arms searching for Stephen's body, wrapping around Stephen's torso, pulling him close, whispering in Stephen's ear the most tender words he had ever heard. “Was that a glimpse of actual hell, for all love? Is that what hell is, in fact, no fiery pit but the complete absence of everything but one’s single consciousness in a great universe of total nothingness?” Stephen thought. “How much worse that was than anything the Church ever taught." Incredibly, it was worse than the pain had initially been, worse than anything Stephen had ever known. He could not name the fear. It seemed to be much more than the fear of ceasing to exist. It was removed from Diana, yes, directly brought about by the news of her death but not, he thought, specifically related to losing her. It was far deeper and more fundamental.    
  
"Jack, I need you, please, dear God, I need you, Jack..." Stephen had wept, unable to articulate the rest: to not go mad, to not feel his soul shatter into dust, to not die from sheer terror.  A freezing vacuum extended all the way through the center of Stephen’s being. It felt as though his heart was being crushed in its power. He desperately needed Jack to pull him back from the maw, to fill him and surround him with his living being. Jack did so and Stephen lay in his arms falling asleep, feeling Jack's heart beating against his own chest, pulling him back to the land of the living. He slept in Jack's arms as he had that first night in Gibraltar so many years ago, saved once more.  
  
"Jack will always save you," the Holy Mother of God had told him ten years ago in Mahón and Stephen thought that once again, he had seen that she had spoken the truth to him. Jack had wordlessly given him the succor he so desperately needed. He had never felt such complete terror in his life. Was it merely a delusion, a product of an inhuman burden of shock and grief added to some physical debility? Was there some greater meaning, whether it had to do with Diana or his beliefs about death and the afterlife? He did not remember weeping so miserably after being rescued from Mahón and it aggrieved him deeply to have been so utterly abject. He was still so immersed in grief that he was not up to deriding himself for what he thought of as his own pathetic weakness, even if he had started weeping again whilst he was asleep.  Stephen would never be able to sufficiently express to Jack the gratitude he felt towards him for what Jack had done in taking him to the inn and staying there with him instead of them both immediately returning to _Surprise_. Jack had disobeyed standing Admiralty orders to spend the night with him away from the ship. The thought of undergoing what he had experienced that day and night on board _Surprise_ , surrounded by shipmates was unbearable. Stephen had treated many a grief-stricken sailor mourning the death of tie-mate and had seen how necessarily public grief was on a man of war. Stephen’s privacy meant everything to him. Jack was the only person on earth with whom Stephen shared the degree of intimacy required for Stephen to be able to shed tears in his presence and he did not relish the experience at all. He mused over the fact that this completely abasing scene had happened with Jack as witness and participant and the odd fact that Stephen was not mortified by that realization. The extent of the intimacy that he apparently shared with Jack was beyond anything he could have ever imagined.  
  
He remembered that he had awakened at daylight that next morning. The unbearable soul-rending pain had ended: he felt a very strong, dull ache in his heart and he was surrounded by the reality that Diana was no more. He still could not bear to hear or speak her name or think of her, but he could at least breathe now, could function enough to dress and eat. He watched Jack sleep and thanked God for him yet again. Jack wakened and dressed and they had some breakfast. Stephen had opened the door and walked through it into bright Madeiran sunshine of the awful reality of life after Diana. Jack had taken his arm and only for that could Stephen walk. His grief was staggering.  
  
Before leaving _Surprise_ , Stephen had written Jack a very uncharacteristically passionate letter, impelled by a horrible fear of parting having left those words unsaid forever, as now his heart broke for the words that he would never say to Diana. He hoped to be back to _Surprise_ in no more than two months time with the blessing, but he could not go so long leaving those words unexpressed to Jack. He was certain that Jack was completely mystified to read such an effusive declaration written in Stephen’s hand. Stephen had shocked himself with his complete absence of reticence, but his previous day’s experience was most singular as well.  
  
Days went by before he could bring himself to think of Diana at all. He could not write about her in his diary or bear to say her name aloud or read any reference to her. Clarissa’s letter informing him of her death was folded in his bosom. As long as he banished her name from his mind, there was a part of him that could pretend that she had not died even as he understood that she had. When he finally could bring himself to think of her, he wept again for another whole day with little restraint, another action unprecedented in his adult life. He was alone in his cabin on the _Lushington_ and his sole consideration was stifling the noise of his sobs so as not to be heard by the passengers and crew. He wept for not having the opportunity to say goodbye, for not having been there, for all the years they had lost, wasted and now would never have. Stephen was no stranger to death. His parents had died when he was very young, he had lost many friends, relations and of course many of his patients had died over the years but no death had ever been more devastating to him than Diana’s was now.  
  
Stephen now felt tremendous guilt for having spent so much time separated from Diana. He had told himself over and over as the years went by that their relationship was better for the separation, that subjected to him continuously, Diana would have left him permanently in short order. Now, he was forced to wonder sadly how much worse their marriage could have been with him at home than the reality of what it was: years of separation, great unhappiness and instability on Diana’s part, petty jealousies and probable infidelity. She had spent years being extremely unhappy and he had rationalized it away. Though she had left him repeatedly, he had tended to assume, especially of late, that eventually things would work out  when the war was finally over. They would settle down together. Given the many years he had spent pursuing her, it had been a natural assumption. It had never occurred to him that sooner rather than later she would be gone forever; there would be no chance to work anything out.  
  
Stephen remembered her words when they had finally unexpectedly reunited in Ireland: “Stephen, you must never go to sea any more.” Diana had said, verging on tears. She had taken his hand, had dragged him in the house and upstairs to her bed. He had been almost shocked by her ardour for him. It had been very hard for him to make the adjustment from not having seen her for almost four years to making love to her when he had assumed she had left him and never wanted to see him again. She had wept before and after. Like Stephen, Diana hated evincing any display of emotional weakness and it had pained her to cry in front of him. Diana told him she would rather stay in bed with him metaphorically forever than ever see him leave her again. She had asked him point blank to promise her to leave off ever going to sea again and he had demurred.  
  
They had been separated that instance for almost four years by his work in naval intelligence. She had born their only child, Brigid, months into the first leg of their voyage to the eastern Pacific, to Pulo Prabang.  Stephen and Jack had intended to go to South America in _Surprise_ , had been detained and reassigned to go in the _Diane_ to Pulo Prabang. After Pulo Prabang, they had intended to rendezvous with the _Surprise_ , but the _Diane_ had wrecked against a reef. They were rescued finally and went to Java, then back to Botany Bay in the _Nutmeg of Consolation_. Finally they had a rendezvous with _Surprise_ , Stephen had done his political work in Peru and Chile and they had finally returned to England. When Stephen got home, after three long years, Diana was gone. She had left their baby, Brigid, with Clarissa Oakes and Stephen had no idea whatever where she was. Almost an entire other year had gone by before Stephen had run into her by accident and she had begged him not to go back on _Surprise_ , not to go anywhere.  
  
He had not acceded to her wishes. He could salve his conscience by the fact that he and Diana had then taken a very long trip together to Spain, for Stephen to accomplish many errands at once, specifically retrieving their daughter, Brigid, his servant, Padeen and Clarissa Oakes, who acted as Brigid’s nanny as well as him retrieving his own fortune in gold. He had reunited Diana with Brigid, which was no mean feat, given Diana's immense guilt at her abandonment of her only child. And in the succeeding years, he had spent more time with her than he ever had in their marriage. But he had gone to sea again.  
  
“Would she be alive now had I stayed home?” Stephen thought, looking out the window. It was hard to say, but he doubted it. She was so naturally reckless and the accident that took her life could have just as easily happened with Stephen (or worse, Stephen and Brigid) sitting next to her or whilst he had stayed at home writing another book. Would his ongoing presence over all those years have changed her in any way, made her less inclined to leave him, less inclined to be so reckless, made her happier overall and less flighty? That he could not honestly say. He doubted it. There was a possibility that his never-ending presence would have worn on her and she would have sought to leave him sooner.  Stephen had no delusions about the connubial bliss his presence would be responsible for. She was not always devastated at his departure, not at all. When they were together, he had not been very saddened to leave her at home whilst he sailed the world with Jack. He believed that most couples would do well with a little less togetherness; it had certainly helped their marriage at the outset that they had not actually lived together in their house on Half Moon Street. He realized now with a pang that he was part of a couple that had spent years together in close quarters, very close quarters indeed and had virtually no desire to ever be parted and that, of course, was himself and Jack. They stayed together on board ship, at Stephen’s room in the Grapes and at their club, Black’s in the city whenever they had the opportunity to do so. The only time they did not share a room was when Jack was actually at home with Sophie.  
  
Diana had commented on it many times, telling Stephen facetiously that he was married to Jack and she could not believe that Jack would allow Stephen to be with her. She had referred to Jack as “your husband” to Stephen’s face and in front of other people. She had said this even after they had married and he had kept his expression bland, as though he were not listening. Truth be told, it had both angered him greatly and made his heart race to hear her say it. Stephen had never said a word of reproach to her for it. He had rarely ever said a word of reproach to her at all about anything. He wondered now if she had actually been jealous. Of what he did not know: his own friendship with Jack? Jack’s evident love for him?  That Stephen had not destroyed his friendship with Jack for her? Or that Stephen had chosen over and over to be with Jack, instead of her, his wife? Her father and first husband had been in the Army and she understood duty, but Stephen’s absences had seemed to go beyond duty.  
  
Jack would have been a bone of contention between them had Stephen ever risen to Diana’s baiting of him. He refused to do so. Diana had made appallingly cruel comments to Stephen about Jack over the years. She had made observations about him that he would have demanded satisfaction for had they been uttered by any man. In response, he had looked at her silently, forcing himself not to react. He had told himself that by saying nothing, he was a looking glass to reflect her cruelty back to her for her to realize how unseemly her words had been. He would not dignify the worst of her comments about Jack with any response. A few times, he had walked away from her in silence, disgust and deep sadness. She had never apologized or seemed at all aware how much she had offended him. Like most conflicts with Diana, he had chosen to put it out of his mind, time and again. Now he wondered at it. Stephen was well aware that it was Jack’s sense of delicacy for Stephen’s feelings that made him refrain from ever making any utterance that could be construed however vaguely as a criticism of Diana. Diana had never worried about offending Stephen by criticising his dearest friend in the least.  
  
He sat in the post-chaise, thinking how he had thought for so many years that Diana had been virtually his only reason for being alive, the sole light in his life. He adored her beyond all reason. He petted her, doted on her and spoiled her. Their relationship was complex, it had changed greatly over time, it had ebbed and flowed over the years. She had deserted him many times. He had been as forgiving and understanding of her as any man possibly could have been. He had turned a blind eye to the fact that she most probably had cuckolded him repeatedly. All that said, Diana had begged him not to go back to sea ever again and he had disregarded her wishes.  
  
He had told himself it was for the greater good, for the purpose of doing everything in his power to defeat Buonaparte. He had done it for the good of all Europe, for Ireland, for Catalan independence, for the Holy Father and Catholicism, and for the United Kingdom (even though he supported Irish self determination.) He had done it to fight the evil slave trade. He had done it for natural philosophy. He had done it for his prior shipmates, whose lives he was preserving with his presence. He had done it to earn a living and to share in prize money. There was only one reason he had not admitted to himself and now Diana was gone and it was staring him in the face.  
  
He had gone to sea over and over again to be with Jack Aubrey.  
  
It was not that all the other reasons were not true; they were. Every one of them was true. But Stephen would probably not have sacrificed anything if there were no Jack Aubrey. He told himself he simply could not trust his life to anyone else. That was true as well. He did not trust anyone else. But there was more to it than that. He loved Jack more than life itself. He had killed for him and he would die for him.  Now, sitting alone in a post-chaise riding up to Woolcombe to see his daughter and Jack’s wife, Sophie, he was struck with the blinding realization that he loved Jack more than he had Diana. It was a shock, but almost two weeks of solitude and his restless mind had forced him to reach that inevitable conclusion whilst sailing from Madeira to Portsmouth.  
  
Stephen and Jack had cleaved to each other back after Port Mahón in 1805. It was a strangely deviant chain of causality that found Stephen head over heels in love with his particular friend and Jack apparently in the same situation. One side of Stephen's heart was entirely Jack's. It did not trouble him that he had never confided the intimate nature of his and Jack's relationship to Diana. He had never felt that he was being unfaithful to Diana because the part of his heart that Jack owned was Jack's alone and always had been from that night in Mahón on. There was no issue of him keeping that part of his heart from Diana. There was no possibility of it ever being hers or anyone else's, for that matter. That part of his heart would always belong to Jack. His heart beat on only because of Jack and that had been true for close to a decade.  
  
Jack's commitment to Stephen was absolute and eternal: whatever sacrifice, as long as it took, forever, whatever the circumstances. Jack had acted on that completely unspoken commitment to Stephen over and over again, more times than Stephen could count with no expectation of anything in return, ever. There were too many incidents for Stephen to even remember but he thought one of the most emblematic was that Jack had dived out the stern window of _Surprise_ into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean in the pitch black for Stephen without one second of hesitation. Jack had and would move heaven and earth for Stephen. Jack had risked and would risk everything for Stephen:  his own life, the lives of his subordinates, his ship, the secrets of his nation, his career, his future, in short, everything. Without Jack’s devotion to him, Stephen would have died many times over. Jack’s selfless devotion to Stephen could not have been any further from the tenor of Stephen’s relationship with Diana. Stephen had moved heaven and earth for her, had dueled Canning to defend her honour, had rescued her from America, had given her everything in his power and she had deserted him repeatedly.  
  
Diana had, in her own way, tried to save Stephen’s life, when she had attempted to ransom him from the French with her gigantic diamond, the Blue Peter. With the best of intentions, she had almost put his neck and Jack’s neck and Jagiello’s neck in a noose. He had honoured her for her extravagant and generous impulse; for Diana, it was extraordinarily unselfish and for a while, he had been able to believe that she actually was in love with him. That had been before Valletta, when things had gone so terribly wrong.  
  
Listening to the horse’s hooves clopping in the roadway, he remembered a conversation he had with Jack many, many years ago when they had discussed sodomy whilst Stephen rowed the jolly boat for exercise when Jack had command of the _Boadicea_ , en route to Mauritius. Stephen had managed to steer a dialectic with Jack where he queried Jack if in an ideal world, whether Jack would prefer to sail with Sophie, living out the intimacies of his married life on board the ship or if he would choose for things to be as they were, spending his life travelling with Stephen, he and Stephen being lovers. Jack had answered that he would prefer things the way they were. Now Stephen was taken aback to realize that he had never asked himself the equivalent question and that if he had, he probably would not have been capable of answering honestly. He had evaded acknowledging the truth all these years, though he had lived it. He had chosen Jack over Diana, Jack over everything. Jack had been, once again, far more honest and courageous than Stephen himself and it made Stephen admire him more.  
  
The post-chaise drew up the long, curving drive and slowed. The coachman was untying the trunk and Stephen put his hat on, stretched his legs, made sure he had everything and descended when the door had been opened for him.  
  
He looked up to see Sophie running to him, her sweet and beautiful face full of sadness. She was dressed in mourning. He opened his arms and embraced her and she squeezed him hard.  
  
“Oh, Stephen my dear, I cannot believe you are finally here.” Sophie released him and took his hand. “How was your journey?”  
  
“It was agreeable, my dear. The winds were mostly favorable.” The servant came from the house to get Stephen’s trunk. “I have a letter from Jack for you in my pocket, “ he said. They walked towards the house. “The house looks very handsome.” Stephen said. She took his hand and led him inside, into the small sitting room, an intimate room with a view of the crabapple trees when they bloomed in spring.  
  
“Brigid and George are probably playing in the stables. Your trunk is going to your room. Do you wish to rest, Stephen?” She said, looking at his extremely tired face.  
  
“No, my dear. More than anything, I wish to speak with you. I have come a long, long way to have this conversation.” Sophie looked very grave. Tears welled up in her great grey eyes.  
  
“Stephen, I am so very, very sorry.” Sophie said and drew his hands to her lips and kissed them. Tears streaked her face.  
  
“Thank you, my dear. And I am so very sorry for the loss of your mother.” Sophie looked down. “I left immediately, as soon I received the news. If there were other letters, I crossed them on my way here. How is my Brigid?”  
  
“She is as well as can be expected. She does very well, truthfully.” Sophie said. “She is a lovely child, Stephen, a beautiful and dear little girl.”  
  
“Is she much affected? Please be truthful, Sophie.” Sophie bit her lip.  
  
“Not so much, Stephen. I don’t mean to say anything about Brigid or Diana for that matter. She is a happy child. Her life here for the last year or so has been very placid thus far, thank goodness. For that reason, I do not think she is much affected. Of course, she loved her mother dearly.” Stephen read volumes in Sophie’s expression: hesitancy, regret, duplicity, dismay. “She is very well with Mrs. Oakes, as well.”  
  
“Does Brigid weep for Diana? Does she mention her?”  
  
“No, Stephen.” Sophie said, biting her lip anxiously. “She spends most of her time with Padeen, when she is not with Mrs. Oakes or playing with George. Diana had been away off and on and Brigid was not in the habit of seeing her so regularly. I am sure it seems like her mama is away on another trip.”  
  
“Sophie, may I go and see her now?”  
  
“Stephen, of course.” He saw hesitation in her face. “Stephen, I hope it will not vex you, but Brigid is not dressed in mourning. Mama made us girls wear it for a very long time, over a year after my father died and Frankie was a little girl and hated it so. It made her cry to see her own reflection. It seems so beastly to me, I should not want my own children to suffer so if I should die when they are small, God forbid. Mrs. Oakes dressed her so for two weeks and then we decided she should go back to her regular clothes. I was worried as well, the effect it would have on Brigid, given how sensitive she is.”  
  
“Sophie, you know much more than I about any of this and I defer entirely to your judgement, my dear.” Stephen took her hands in his.  “I cannot thank you enough for your care of Brigid. It is a great relief to know she is with the kindest friend I have in the world.”  
  
Sophie stood and they walked out to the paddock. Brigid and George were playing a game with the hay, jumping around whilst Brigid neighed like a pony. She looked up at the sound of the footsteps and saw Stephen and ran to him, shrieking in delight.  
  
“Papa! Papa! Why are you here? _Ba mhaith liom póg, Papa_.”  Brigid said, demanding a kiss from him in Irish.  
  
“I have come to see my big girl.” Stephen answered her, bending over and lifting her in his arms. “ _A Mháthair Dé, conas tá tú tar éis fás_.” Mother of God, she has grown so much, Stephen thought, as he said it to her in Irish.  
  
“Where is Cousin Jack?”  
  
“He is still at sea. I have come alone.”  
  
“You must come and see where Padeen and I have found some tiny kittens, Papa, back here in my pony’s stall...”Brigid said, pulling his hand to point. “Sophie says I may have one when they are big enough to leave their mama.” Stephen carried her and looked over the kittens, oohed and aahed, consulted with her as to their sexes and put Brigid down, kissing her face.  
  
“I am very tired after my long trip, _a chuisle mo chroí_.” Stephen said, kissing her tenderly again. “I will go to the house and take a rest and you must come when you are finished playing and wash up and see me.” Brigid kissed Stephen and she and George ran off laughing. He turned to Sophie.  
  
“I think I shall need that rest now, joy.” Sophie took his hand and they walked arm in arm to the house. She took him to the east wing of the house. A room was set aside for him there, though usually he stayed with Diana in hers.  
  
“Sophie, my dear, may I enter Diana’s room, if you please?”  
  
“Oh, dear Stephen, of course.” Sophie had left it just as it was the day of Diana’s accident. He opened the door and Sophie left him, closing the door behind her. He kicked off his shoes, lay down in Diana’s bed, smelled her fragrance on the pillows and wept until he fell asleep, still dressed in his travelling clothes.  
  
 ** _30 March, 1815_**  
 ** _Surprise at Sea_**  
  
 ** _Sweetheart,_**  
 ** _This very short note I am writing in great haste to put in Stephen's hand as he leaves_ Surprise _to board the_ Lushington _for home. I apologize in advance for its brevity, dearest Sophie. I left a very much longer letter to be taken on the packet yesterday with the mail agent in Funchal and it was there yesterday that Stephen and I received the news of Diana's terrible accident at Maiden Oscott and its shocking consequences._**  
  
 ** _As you have no doubt seen with your own eyes, my poor old Stephen is in a most terrible way. I believe we nearly lost him yesterday: the shock and the grief almost killed him, after reading Mrs. Oakes’ letter with the wholly unexpected news of Diana’s death. It is a damnable thing that he is forced to travel home alone, with_ Ringle _gone to Gibraltar and I cannot possibly take_ Surprise _out of the squadron. I have never seen him so very low. I fear greatly for his health, but he is Stephen and I cannot possibly say a word to him about it. I do love him so, Sweetheart: pray take care of him to the utmost of your ability. Do not let him starve himself in his grief. He is already so appallingly thin. He loves you greatly and will let you coddle him much more than anyone of whom I can think. He is apt to be savage with anyone who tries to cosset him, but probably will not dare to be so with you. Should he become ill at all, please ignore his protests and send immediately for Dr.Wilcox. You may tell him that it was all on account of me and that you could not disobey me in this. He loves you very dearly. I thank God that he has little Brigid as a reason to go on living and know that you must be a very great comfort to that poor motherless little girl._**  
  
 ** _I am so very, very sorry to not be able to come home to you to hold you in my arms, my darling Sophie. I was so very shocked to hear the dreadful news and to read your letter.  Sweetheart, my heart broke for you to read of your Mama's death. It pains me so that I am not at home with you. No letter that I can write can possibly express the depths of my sorrow for your loss, Sweetheart. Please convey my deepest sympathies and dearest love to Cissy and Frankie. I must make haste now, Stephen departs very soon but know that you indeed possess --_**  
  
 ** _All of my dearest love,_**  
 ** _Jack_**  
  
Sophie put Jack’s letter down. Stephen was, indeed, in a most appalling state. He had not eaten any supper the night he arrived but had slept through the night. This morning, he had taken nothing for breakfast but coffee, had barely eaten at all at dinner and supper was not looking promising.  
  
Sophie had never seen Stephen look so very low. His deep and obvious grief was only broken by the presence of Brigid, but Sophie worried that Stephen' s spirits would be further lowered by how indifferent Brigid was to her mother’s absence. Stephen wore no symbol of outward mourning himself in the house; it was unnecessary, his grief was written all over him. An armband would have been completely superfluous. His hat did have a black crape band. He saw absolutely no one socially whatever. A pile of condolence letters sat waiting for him to open them and he could not bear to do so. He was there solely to attend to whatever business of Diana’s had to be addressed and to see to the care of his daughter.   
  
Sophie immediately told Stephen that Clarissa, Padeen and Brigid must stay indefinitely; she and Jack would not hear of any other arrangement, anything else was unthinkable. Woolcombe was their home and it was Stephen's home as well, forever, or at least as long as it pleased him. Diana had been like a sister to her and Stephen was dearer to both Jack and herself than any brother could ever be. Stephen looked at her with tears in his eyes and squeezed her hand. He planned on staying no more than two weeks and then he must leave. Duty called and he had to return to the squadron as soon as possible. He had been lucky with the winds coming from Madeira, but he could be stuck weeks getting back.  
  
Sophie was grateful that Clarissa Oakes was there to keep Stephen company. Sophie had many details to attend to herself with the running of the house, her children and her own late mother’s affairs and she was not free to attend Stephen continually. Sophie planned rich meals for him, begged him to take porter with her for her own health and made sure they had a stock of all his favorite foods but still, Stephen ate very little. She thought she could see him grow thinner by the day and it saddened her deeply.  
  
Clarissa Oakes took Stephen to see Diana’s grave in the churchyard and had gone in the church to allow him his grief in privacy. There were few flowers to be had and Diana’s stone had not yet been laid. Stephen had brought a bouquet of hot house roses and they looked very sad lying on the bare ground. He stared at the bare grave, tears spilling from his eyes and murmured many prayers for her. An hour later, Clarissa was at his elbow and they left in silence. It started to rain and Stephen walked wordlessly with her, grateful to be with the one person he had ever met who could keep her silence and refrain from asking questions.  
  
Stephen had the papers drawn for Sophie to act as Brigid’s guardian whilst he was out of the country. It saddened him greatly that Brigid did not mention Diana once whilst he was there. He was afraid to say anything to her, to possibly reopen wounds that had started healing before his own arrival. He saw more of Diana in her now than he had ever glimpsed before. It pained him and made him happy simultaneously.  
  
Stephen looked through Diana’s boxes of jewels. She had been buried with the Blue Peter just as she had told him she wanted to be all those years ago, long before they were married. She had apparently mentioned it to Clarissa multiple times as well and Clarissa had seen to it. He supposed he should keep her jewels for Brigid, though he dearly hoped Brigid would not grow up as enamoured of them as her mother had been. Stephen took Diana’s wedding ring and put it in his waistcoat pocket, just as he had carried the Blue Peter there for her so many years ago. He would carry her ring in that pocket with him always.  
  
The two weeks passed extremely quickly. After an early supper that Stephen had barely eaten of, Brigid sat on his lap as he read a book from Jack’s family library in front of the fire. Brigid played with the wicker sledge with matching dolls that Stephen had bought her as a gift in Funchal. She and George had ridden in the sledge down the hills of Funchal and had screamed like banshees and she was entranced with the gift. She looked up and focused on his eyes, touching the frame of his spectacles.  
  
“Papa, why may Padeen and I not go with you?” Her little voice piped.  
  
“A war is no place for a little girl.”  
  
“Emily and Sarah were with you on _Surprise_. They were little girls. And there was a war.”  
  
“They were coming to England, _a chuisle mo chroí_. They had no family.”  
  
“Do I have family, Papa?” Stephen looked in her bright blue eyes, so much like Diana’s and felt tears in his own eyes.  
  
“Of course you have family, my love. Fanny and Charlotte and George are your cousins. Sophia is your cousin as well. You have Cousin Jack and myself as well. And you have people who love you as much as family, like Padeen and Mrs. Oakes.”  
  
“I want to be with you, Papa. You and Padeen. And Mrs. Oakes, too. With Cousin Jack. We all went to Madeira before, with Mama. Why can I not go now? Why can George and I not come?”  
  
“Someday we shall, my love. I promise you with all my heart. And I shall send you a lovely present every month that I am gone. Now, be a good child and go get ready for bed.” Brigid embraced him tightly around the neck and whispered in his ear in Irish. Then she jumped off laughing and ran and Stephen looked into the fire wondering how many times his heart could break.  
  
All of Diana’s effects would be stored indefinitely at Woolcombe. Stephen spent every night sleeping in her bed. By the time he left, he could no longer detect any trace of her scent in the room. His last afternoon in Woolcombe, he had gone into her desk to look for writing paper, he found a letter of five lines that she had started to write to him the day before her death. He sprinkled it with her perfume and put it in his bosom, along with the black velvet ribbon she had worn so often around her neck.  Stephen turned and looked around the room and said aloud, “Good-bye my love and may God bless you always,” the words he had always said when they parted and he stepped from the room and closed the door, ready to return once more to _Surprise_.


End file.
